News & Blog

News & Blog Header

News & Blog

Our expert faculty are frequent contributors to consumer-based media as well as to more scholarly academic publications. Keep current with recent developments in the retirement income planning field and check out the latest articles from the thought leaders who are part of the The American College New York Life Center for Retirement Income.

With many Americans reviewing their financial situation after the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it is important that any life insurance needs are also reviewed at this time. The reality is that many people do not think about life insurance as a financial asset and don’t review their life insurance needs frequently enough.

A recent Wall Street Journal article, “Millions Bought Insurance to Cover Retirement Health Costs. Now They Face an Awful Choice,” has been circulating on the internet but for all the wrong reasons. The WSJ piece essentially falls into the “bad news sells” category of reporting.

While the tax cuts and changes might have a big impact on government program cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in the future and might also significantly impact how people save, spend, and invest money, only a few direct changes were made to retirement planning laws.

Tax law changes are here. On Friday December 22, 2017, President Trump signed the bill, with most of the provisions taking effect in 2018. That leaves little time for tax planning with the holidays and two weekends before the New Year.

If you want a more secure financial future and retirement, it is time to consider using a Roth IRA. Unfortunately, most people don’t. Roth IRAs remain a vastly underutilized retirement savings and investment vehicle. Instead, most people tend to rely on a traditional IRA or 401(k) account.

When talking about real estate, you have likely heard the widely used phrase “location, location, location.” What realtors mean by this is that identical homes may have very different prices depending upon location. What this often means to home buyers is that they may have to pay more to live close to work or to be in the best school district.

You have likely seen some articles discussing the sudden rise in value of Bitcoin over the past year. Bitcoin has experienced a surge in value. However, the surge in attention and value has also attracted a number of critics, including Vanguard founder Jack Bogle and Nobel Prize winner Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz from Columbia University.

Today, the average American is roughly 20 years younger than their current representative in Congress. Essentially, the average age of a member of Congress has increased with each new Congress. The current Congress, the 115th, is the oldest in history with the average age of a senator being 61.

A number of recent articles stated that the government’s new reverse mortgage changes (Mortgagee Letter 2017-12) will make the program less attractive to borrowers. However, this might have been an initial overreaction.

A new report by MassMutual raises questions about the current effectiveness of retirement savings initiatives and programs in the United States, as the overwhelming majority of respondents, roughly 72 percent, agreed that they are not saving enough for retirement.